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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23398762">maybe, Mary, things got scary</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustdean/pseuds/stardustdean'>stardustdean</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Brief Mention of Underage Drinking, Gen, Pre-Season/Series 01, The Winchester Family (Supernatural), canon-typical bad parenting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 05:42:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,251</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23398762</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustdean/pseuds/stardustdean</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>John hopes Mary forgives him someday.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester &amp; Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>maybe, Mary, things got scary</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy springfling to my dear recipient, smalltrolven! The story's based on the "As we mouth our silent goodbyes" prompt. And a huge thank you to monicawoe for beta'ing this one. :)</p><p>The title is borrowed from Truckstop Flower by Swear and Shake.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the park, as Dean swings on the swings and Sam softly coos in John’s arms, John meets a young mother holding a baby who’s babbling “Mama! Look! Bird!”</p><p>John can’t stop thinking about it all the way back to the motel, his stomach twisting with sickly guilt. </p><p>Between learning the ropes of hunting (there’s so much to know and he’s only got the one life—and two boys to come home back to) and trying to keep Sammy and Dean situated, John overlooks the fact that Sam’s a late, late talker. By his age, Dean’d already been stringing multiple words together to tell John all about his day and all the toys he’d played with while Mary looked on fondly.</p><p>Mary. Had she been there, she wouldn’t have ever missed it. She would’ve known Sammy should’ve started talking, and she would’ve worried. But it’s been such a haze without her. John can barely keep track of hours some days. Forget months.</p><p>No wonder Sammy’s silent. No one’s really been talking to him. John’s away a lot, leaving the two of them with whatever babysitter’s available. And Dean’s been awfully quiet after the fire, only speaking when he absolutely has to. John thought he’d get over it soon enough, but it’s been months, and Dean’s still a silent wide-eyed ghost following John around whenever he can. </p><p>John really dropped the ball, didn't he?</p><p>It’s better late than never, and after dinner, he makes sure to spend some quality time with Sammy. John gets as far as “Hey, buddy” when Dean appears next to the bed, face quizzical.</p><p>“I’m just chatting with Sammy. He should listen to us talk so he learns how to talk too. We want him to talk to us, right, champ?” John says, rocking Sam back and forth as he tries to wiggle out of John’s arms. “I’ll read you both a story later, how’s that sound?”</p><p>Dean beams, and that makes John’s heart drop even lower. How absent has he been for Dean to be so happy about a bedtime story? John reads them the entire fairytale book that night and then reads Jack and the Beanstalk again as an encore even though Sam’s sound asleep by then and Dean’s barely awake, curled up and pressed into his side. He tucks them both in and sits at the table near the window, trying not to make any noise. </p><p>John opens a manila folder with newspaper clippings and in a couple of hours, he’s got himself a lead. Something’s tearing people to shreds in Nevada. If John was a betting man, he’d bet werewolf.</p><p>He makes some notes in his journal and a mental one to fill the car up with gas first thing tomorrow. John looks over at where his boys are on the bed: Dean curled up around Sam like that’s enough to protect him from all the things that go bump in the night.</p>
<hr/><p>John comes back from Nevada a couple of weeks later to pick Sam and Dean up. He hears laughter from their temporary room at Pastor Murphy’s place. Dean’s sitting on the bed next to Sam and retelling him Cinderella, doing voices and everything. Dean doesn’t know how to read yet, but he makes a good show of it anyway, dragging his finger over the book page and pointing at colorful illustrations.</p><p>Sam’s babbling, excited about it and claps his tiny chubby hands.</p><p>“Dad! Sammy’s talking!” </p><p>John looks over at Pastor Murphy for confirmation that it’s not just Dean’s wild imagination at play. He nods. </p><p>“He said my name!” Dean adds with a grin.</p><p>Dean’s first word was “Mama,” and John was there for it and he and Mary marveled at it and Mary even broke out the camera to take a picture of Dean and John. She put it in the <i>Dean’s Firsts</i> magnetic album. Mary loved keeping mementos. But she kept all of them in the same place. Their house. </p><p>John’s heart splinters and aches as Dean tells him all about a memory that he wasn’t there for.</p><p>He’s away so other people won’t lose their wives and mothers, won’t have to go through what the Winchesters suffered. </p><p>He hopes Mary forgives him for that someday.</p>
<hr/><p>No matter what the world tosses at Dean, he’s always got something to say to the world right back. Sam’s kind of awed by that. Secretly awed. Wouldn’t want to give his dumbass big brother a big head. </p><p>Sam tends to get quiet. He doesn’t like talking to the kids in new schools (can’t get attached, it hurts worse to leave). He doesn’t give in to the monsters’ goading (better think about how to kill them instead). Dean always keeps Sam company with chitchat or loud tunes whenever they’re in the car. </p><p>And Sam doesn’t even bother trying to talk to girls. </p><p>Dean, though, knows all about talking to girls. They laugh and duck their heads and twirl their hair around their fingers whenever he walks close to them with some dumbass line like “Wow, is it hot in here or is it you?” and a ton of confidence to back in up.</p><p>Dean ends up high-fiving like, half the school as they walk to class, “Hey, man!”, “You catch the game yesterday?”, “What’s up, dude?”, and Sam watches on, half impressed, half jealous. Dean makes it seem so easy. </p><p>Whenever the monsters have them pinned and are gloating about it, Dean always has a snappy one-liner or a simple but concise “Fuck you!” stashed for them.</p><p>When Dean drives them someplace Dad wants to meet them (he can drive the car himself without sweating about getting pulled over now, having recently turned sixteen), he seems to catch on if Sam’s down in the dumps about leaving the previous town behind and talks his ear off about cool cars and how there’s a huge lake near the next town where they can go swimming and then have a couple of cold ones, and, wow, look at this kickass new tape I bought, Sammy! </p><p>Sam rolls his eyes. Hard.</p><p>He smiles as soon as Dean looks back at the road and can’t see and runs his index finger over the dog-eared pages of a paperback Dean stole for him three towns back.  </p><p>Maybe Sam can be kind of quiet, but Dean talks enough for two. Most of the time, it’s not even annoying.</p><p><i>Most</i> of the time. Dean is his big brother, after all. It’s just how these things work. The universe has these simple rules: Two plus two equals four, the sky is blue, and big brothers are annoying. </p><p>In half an hour, Sam ends up singing along to Dean’s new tape and he almost doesn’t think about the nice calculus teacher he left behind or the big park near the previous motel where he met a friendly large dog at anymore. </p><p>Sam looks over at Dean and smiles.</p>
<hr/><p>Sometimes, Sam really wishes Dean would shut up. </p><p>Like when he’s giving Dad a piece of his mind about training and skipping high school classes, ‘cause this isn’t like grade school anymore when they were putting two and two together and Sam could catch up like that, no, this is actually important— and Dean just has to worm in between them and say shit about how they’re burning daylight, and, c’mon, tough guy, walk it off! Sam glares while Dean says stuff like “Yes, sir” and “I’m sorry, I’ll do better, it’s not gonna happen again”. </p><p>Dean shouldn’t have to bend over backwards for doing something normal, and it makes Sam’s blood boil. But Dean clicking his heels gets through to John in a way Sam’s <i>insubordination</i> never could. Dean says he doesn’t side with anyone but by keeping the peace, he sure as fuck takes Dad’s side. Because the only way there can be peace is if Dad’s happy. Dad doesn’t do compromise, doesn’t meet people halfway or even one-quarter of the way. So Sam has to walk all the way over every time or the waves will be as rocky as ever.</p><p>“Walk it off,” Dean repeats with a half-hearted shove to punctuate it. Sam doesn’t want to walk it off. He wants to be angry. He deserves as much. Even Dean’s silver tongue can’t talk him down from that.</p><p>There, in a dimly lit motel kitchenette, Sam has a rapid onset of clarity about the universe and his place in it.</p><p>He has to leave, or he’ll lose it. </p><p>“You know, Dad cares. He’s just real bad at showing it sometimes,” Dean says with all the saintly patience of a battered wife. The moth-stained lamp is hanging right above his head like a dollar store halo. Sam scowls and mentally adds another line to his college essay. </p>
<hr/><p>Dean always talks when they drive somewhere. Or plays music.</p><p>The car’s dead quiet now. And what can they say? Sam needed Dean to back him up, maybe more than ever, and Dean chose to cling to the status quo.</p><p>Dad screamed himself hoarse, Sam stood his ground, and Dean... did nothing. In a way, it stung even worse than if he’d sided with Dad. He chose to stand to the side like this wasn’t even happening to him. Like if he stared hard enough at the wall and let John do all the yelling, all the dirty work, Sam would change his mind, and Dean would’ve had nothing to do with it.</p><p>The car comes to a sudden stop and Sam jerks forward, his knees bumping against the glovebox painfully. Usually, Dean’s a better driver than that.</p><p>“‘S your stop,” Dean says flatly, the first thing he’s said since Sam took out the acceptance letter mid-family dinner. </p><p>“Yeah— yeah, I know,” Sam says. He looks at the low building of a bus terminal. The first star appears overhead.</p><p>Sam grabs his duffle.</p><p>Dean’s silent. And not the stoic kind of silence he is when a monster slices his skin or asks him invasive questions (and, fuck, the fact that Sam knows exactly how Dean acts when someone tortures him is exactly why he’s leaving). No, Dean seems lost. All these words he’s been surrounding Sam with for years and years are failing him</p><p>“You... uh, you could come with me,” Sam says, watery and weak.</p><p>Dean shakes his head. Shocker. Sam didn’t expect anything else.</p><p>Then he waves his hand and mouths “Bye” but no sound comes out.</p><p>Sam doesn’t look back as he heads to the bus. Looking back is how they got Orpheus and Lot’s wife. Sam’s too genre-savvy for that, no matter how much the night wind shoves at him and begs him to turn around before it’s too late.</p><p>It’s only when Sam’s unpacking in the dorm room that he finds a mythology book in his duffle that he didn’t pack. It’s tucked right next to a mean-looking knife. Sam strokes the cover and sets it on the bookshelf between a picture of Mary and a Law 101 textbook.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <s>Sam, I’m working a case in the area</s>
</p><p>
  <s>Hey, Sammy, I</s>
</p><p>
  <s>Heya, bitch, how’s it hanging</s>
</p><p>
  <s>So is that school of yours any fun? Any hot co-eds? Naked pillow fights?</s>
</p><p>
  <s>How could you even</s>
</p><p>
  <s>You son of a bitch, this is our job and people die if we don’t do it</s>
</p><p>
  <s>What about Mom, huh?</s>
</p><p>
  <s>Fuck you for leaving. I can’t do this alo</s>
</p><p>Dean crumples up the page of the notepad and tosses it away, frustrated. It misses the trash can by a good foot. </p><p>He takes a nice, long sip of whiskey right out of the bottle and tears the cheap card with a view of Vegas in half. He drops it into the trash can on the way out of the room with one bed. </p>
<hr/><p>Sam’s eyes are hollow after Jessica’s death. Dean’s seen this expression before, on Dad, right after the fire. Back then, Sammy was real little, and he cried all the time, and Dean had to tell Dad about that like five times over before Dad heard him, even though Sam was a loud baby. No one could miss that, right? But Dad could somehow, no matter how desperate Sam’s crying got. And right now, Sam’s in the same damn boat.</p><p>Back then, Dean was just too damn young to do anything. But now, he tops off Sam’s drinks, and finds cases to keep them going, and gets Sam a hoity-toity Albert Camus book. Dean even pays for that thing fair and square like a good law-abiding citizen. The money does come from pool hustling, but he’s not robbing an indie bookstore. Sam wouldn’t be too thrilled with that.</p><p>Sam manages a ghost of a smile at the gift, and that’s better than Dad’s ever fared.</p>
<hr/><p>John watches his sons talk vamp-killing plans, all gestures and brief words, one picking up where the other leaves off. They barely need to talk to understand each other. Good.</p><p>They’re gonna need to be much better hunters than John is if they’re ever gonna finish this mission. And honestly, John’s proud of the way they turned out. Tough and competent and brave.</p><p>And <i>kind</i>.</p><p>As Sam smiles at Dean and points at a sentence in a lore book and talks about how to strategize to save all the people the nest is holding captive, John thinks he didn’t have that much to do with that last part.</p><p>John hopes Mary forgives him for that when they meet again.</p>
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